Borrowing Glances
by The Marauders3
Summary: Costume ball at the palace—masks are worn, no one knows who anyone is, and flirting abounds.


**Title:** Borrowing Glances  
**By:** dragoneye  
**Rating:** K+  
**Written Because:** I was at the library and needed to write SOMEthing! Had the idea for a while now, but Karlee wrote her Masquerade first, so this had to wait.

**Summary:** Costume ball at the palace—masks are worn, no one knows who anyone is, and flirting abounds.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own The Princess Diaries.

OoOoO

Mia breezed into her office and flopped herself down onto the couch, taking a ridiculous "woe is me" pose before announcing, "I'm bored."

Charlotte chose not to reply.

Suddenly the young queen sat up. "Charlotte, do you do the whole Halloween thing in Genovia?"

"We do dress up, and trick-or-treat from house to house, but it's not as big a deal as you Americans make it," Charlotte said, wondering what Mia was getting at.

"Oh, tosh," she said, getting to her feet and pacing the room, and Charlotte felt Mia looked exactly like Queen Clarisse as she did so. "It's almost Halloween, and I'm too old to go out, but could we have a party here?"

Charlotte blanched at the thought of planning yet another ball, but tried to keep her voice pleasant. "A Halloween ball, Your Majesty? It's never been done before, but I'm sure we could manage…"

Mia stopped her pacing and grinned. "Great! So we'll have a ball—a costume ball, actually—on the 31st. Invite all the usual people, Char, and make sure you find a costume, because I want you to enjoy it, too!"

"If you don't know what I'm dressed up as, how will you know I'm there?"

Mia was left speechless.

OoOoO

Rushing from the ballroom, wearing only her corset and petticoat, Charlotte grew increasingly mad at Shades, who had called her saying there was an emergency in the ballroom and they needed her immediately. She had run, half-dressed, from her room, and arrived in the ballroom moments later to find a masked man calmly sweeping up the shards of an imitation Ming dynasty vase.

"Shades," she had said, finding him amongst the group of security men and wishing she had the sense to put on more clothing, as they were eyeing her in a way she did not like, "how the hell is this an emergency?"

He had looked rather frightened at the sight of his usually calm fiancé glowering with anger, but replied saucily as always. "If I had known you were gonna come down undressed, I would've told Dave to knock it over three minutes ago!" The other guys had laughed, and Charlotte had felt herself flushing with anger and embarrassment.

"If you'd ever listen to what I say, Shades," she had said icily, and the laughter stopped abruptly, "You'd know that's a fake vase, and NOT to insult my modesty." She had then stormed away, angry at Shades for provoking her, and angry at herself for being so stupid as to not put on proper clothes.

OoOoO

Mia swept around the ballroom in the arms of an Elvis impersonator, trying not to lose her cowgirl hat as he whirled her around. She glanced around, seeing football player doing a two-step with a witch, a nerd and a girl in a poodle skirt trying not to step on each other's feet, and what could only be The Phantom of the Opera staring at a woman in a flamenco dress. Everyone, of course, was wearing masks.

She was brought back into the dance as Elvis stopped hastily and his place was taken by a strange man dressed all in black. "And who are you supposed to be?" she asked, putting on a French accent to disguise her voice.

"Zorro, Your Majesty, and I thought cowgirls were American, not German?" came the unmistakable voice of Joseph from behind the mask.

"It was French," she said haughtily, and averted her eyes from his smirk. "So, who's that?" she asked, glancing over and inclining her head towards a mysterious lady wearing a dress from the roaring twenties.

"No idea," Zorro said, but Mia noticed an overly casual tone to his voice that meant he knew exactly who she was, but didn't want to tell Mia. "Have you tried the punch?"

Mia rolled her eyes at his terrible attempt to change the subject, and was about to give him a cheeky reply when their dance, too, was interrupted. A man wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and leather jacket with his hair slicked back had tapped Joseph on the shoulder, so Mia continued the dance with the new mystery man.

"Who are you?" she asked in her accent. His eyes, all she could see behind the mask, looked strangely familiar…

"Your husband," Nicholas said, and they both laughed.

O

Charlotte sidestepped a cowgirl and what she presumed was a T-Bird from the movie Grease as she made her way to the refreshment table. So far tonight, she had danced with a priest, Harry Potter, and Indian chief, and a knight, but she had yet to catch the eye of the mysterious Phantom of the Opera, who had stayed in a corner watching the party all night. She had glanced his way on multiple occasions, trying to catch his eye, but he was always watching someone else. Sometimes, however, she could swear he turned his head away when she looked at him… Charlotte suppressed a sigh and reached for some punch, downing the tiny glass in one gulp.

There appeared a hand from behind her, a hand covered in a black glove, a hand that didn't seem to be reaching for the punch. Charlotte turned around to find herself face to face with the Phantom himself. He backed up a few steps, hand still extended, expecting her to take it and join him on the dance floor. She felt her hand extend of its own accord and join his, and then she was being led into a dance, never breaking eye contact with the Phantom.

"I've been watching you all night," he murmured into her ear as he swept her into a turn.

"Have you really?" she replied, startled, but putting on her Spanish accent to go along with her flamenco dress.

"Yeah, Char," he said, and she gasped. How did he know it was her? Her mouth opened even wider in surprise as his hand traveled down from her waist to her bottom and squeezed gently.

She felt a wave of realization wash over her, and breathed one word:

"Shades…"

O

Joseph's feet were in constant danger as he attempted to cross the crowded ballroom and get to his wife. Clarisse was leaning against a pillar, sipping a glass of champagne through her mask. Sidetracking around a dancing couple and smiling faintly at them, for the flamenco-dress-wearing woman's glance seemed oddly familiar, he came up beside Clarisse and put his arms around her waist, only to be greeted by the champagne being sloshed onto his shirt as she jumped at the sudden contact.

"Oh! Oh, Joseph, I'm so sorry darling, you startled me!" she said, putting a hand to her chest.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked, wiping a few stray drops of champagne off his mask.

"Darling, you're the only man who looks that delicious dressed entirely in black, and you're also the only man who would be so impudent as to greet a queen in such a manner."

He chuckled. "Tonight, my dear wife, you're not a queen, but rather a flapper girl with a feather-trimmed mask."

Clarisse gasped and hit his arm playfully. "I'm always YOUR queen, though. Now why don't we go get you cleaned up? I'm sure your shirt will come clean, but only if you take it off right away." She took his hand and led him out of the ballroom. He knew that his shirt, as opposed to being cleaned right away, would fall to the floor for someone else to take care of, along with some other items of clothing…

THE END

Review and you get to par-tay with the man of your choice: a T-bird, the Phantom, or Zorro. (love Zorro, but Phantom's a musical genius… I pick Phantom!)


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